Dirty Tricks The OSS Morale Operations Branch in Europe, 1943–1945 By Clayton D. Laurie etween mid-September and early October 1944, radio the garrison over to the approaching Allies. Hoffmann encouraged other Germans to liberate their cities and to resist the The "Volksender Drei" broadcasts mystified both Allied officials and During the Second World War, the United States created several agencies to wage a war of words against the Axis. The overseas radio broadcasts of the Voice of America and the film and print campaigns of the official federal propaganda agency, the Office of War Information (OWI), were familiar to most Americans, but the activities of the Morale Operations Branch (MO), created to conduct "black" or covert propaganda campaigns, were known only to a few until OSS records were made public in the mid-1970s.2 The Morale Operations Branch was formed by OSS founder and director William J. Donovan on March 3, 1943. Long before his association with the espionage activities that made the OSS (and later the Central Intelligence Agency) famous, Donovan was convinced that subversive propaganda operations, popularly called Fifth Column ac tivities, were a vitally important psychological warfare function constituting "the modern counterparts of sapping and mining in the siege warfare of former days." In OSS doctrine, which he developed, Donovan proclaimed that the "softening-up" of enemy populations with propaganda was the first step, the opening salvo, in a psychological warfare offensive to prepare a nation for assault by conventional military forces.3 Donovan's enthusiasm for covert propaganda and for psychological warfare activities was not shared by many outside the OSS. The creation of a propaganda unit within the agency came about only after months of struggle against powerful opposition raised by U.S. Army intelligence officials and critics within the OWI. The United States had never practiced this type of propaganda, and the overwhelming sentiments of Congress, Franklin Roosevelt, and the American public were opposed to such tactics, believing subversion and clandestine activities to be odious tools used only by to 4 talitarian governments. Yet Donovan thought otherwise. Hero of the Great War, world traveler, military expert, Wall Street lawyer, and former civil servant, Donovan had traveled to Great Britain as an unofficial agent of President Roosevelt in July 1940 to seek information on British intelligence and propaganda agencies and on Nazi Fifth Column methods. At Roosevelt's behest, a more extensive factfinding tour to the Mediterranean and Middle East followed between November 1940 and March 1941. By the time of his return, Donovan was convinced that the Nazis were far ahead of the Allies in their ability to wage psychological warfare. To fight the Nazis with their own subversive methods, he implored Roosevelt to develop American agencies comparable to Britain's Political Warfare Executive (PWE) and Special Operations Executive (SOE), 5 Roosevelt took this advice and on July 11, 1941, created the Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI), with Donovan as director to oversee all propaganda and intelligence activities at home and abroad, except Latin America. Later, when the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) was created in February 1942, Donovan succeeded in having the COI placed under that agency's control on the reasoning that psychological warfare was a weapon vital to military operations. As the American war effort expanded and the need for psychological warfare services grew, Roosevelt dissolved the COI and on June 12, 1942, created the civilian Office of War Information and the military-controlled Office of Strategic Services." The decision to split the COI into separate propaganda and psychological warfare agencies, one civilian and the other military, sparked a dispute over propaganda functions that extended well into 1944. The OSS and OWI had completely different definitions of what propaganda was and how it should be used. OWI's director, former CBS correspondent Elmer Davis, claimed that the OWI was charged with conducting all federal propaganda programs and that the "black" propaganda Donovan advocated was nonsense and nothing more than an OSS ploy to encroach on OWI's turf, a move Davis resisted for eighteen months. A first attempt to settle this impasse came when the JCS issued JCS 155/ 4/D in December 1942. This directive President Roosevelt, shown signing the declaration of war against Japan, created the COI on July 11, 1941. charged the OSS with the planning, development, coordination, and execution of the military program for psychological warfare and the compilation of information as required for military operations.8 The initial JCS document failed to end the dispute, however. Tensions increased in March 1943, when Donovan was allowed to create a Morale Operations Branch "to incite and spread dissension, confusion, and disorder within enemy countries," to promote subversive activities against enemy governments, and to support resistance groups against the Axis in occupied nations." Working in conjunction with other, larger OSS branches in advance of conventional military forces, MO was charged with conducting clandestine radio broadcasts and spreading rumors, leaflets, and other printed materials, all purporting to come from underground groups within enemy or enemy-occupied nations. Unlike OWI's "white" propaganda, which was official, overt, and largely truthful, MO propaganda was subversive by every possible device, disguised its source, and was disowned by the government. Morale Operations agents were to target enemy populations and turn people against their government, leader against leader, class against class, soldiers against politicians, enlisted men against their officers, service against service, unit against unit, and ally against ally.' 10 The Morale Operations Branch was subdivided into five separate sections: Special Communications Detachments, for tactical propaganda; the Radio Division; Special Contacts, for resistance aid; the Publications and Campaigns Division; and the Foreign Division, for organization of field operations. Both military and civilian personnel were recruited and trained in propaganda fundamentals, leaflet writing, radio propaganda, rumor creation, poison-pen letters, and other tricks of the "black" trade. At its peak in late 1944, MO employed about four hundred people worldwide.11 OWI continued to protest MO activities until a series of JCS directives, a presidential executive order, and numerous agree ments between Donovan and Davis clearly defined OWI's responsibility for official propaganda in the United States and abroad and the OSS's responsibility for "all measures, except [white] propaganda, taken to enforce our will on the enemy by means other than military action." Thereafter the OSS was limited to covert propaganda campaigns in enemy or enemy-controlled territory, purporting to originate with the Axis themselves, while OWI conducted the official and overt federal propaganda campaign.12 The first MO agents arrived in North Africa in March 1943 to a less than enthusiastic welcome from Allied military personnel. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, commander of Allied Force Headquarters in the Mediterranean, hoped to avoid the home-front politics and the rivalries between the OWI, OSS, and the British II. SPECIFIC A. European and Mediterranean 1. Three agents for exclusively MO work have been recruited for Northern Italy. 2. A total of 13 drops of MO kits completed in North and Central Italy. 3. Leaflets totaling 1,600,000 were dropped over Rome and Florence areas on the subject of Italian spies being shot in Naples. An MO Branch progress report for June 1-July 1, 1944, details leaflet-dropping operations in Italy as well as the recruitment and hiring of MO agents. PWE and Ministry of Information by creating a combined Anglo-American propaating a combined Anglo-American propaganda organization known as the Psychological Warfare Branch-Allied Force Headquarters (PWB/AFHQ) to produce "white" combat propaganda aimed solely at Axis military forces on the battlefield. Placed under the immediate command of THE W CAMPAIGN #3 in the end certs purported Later il base to be ba luent grout of G na civilicae carported to beas of hue whole anapoin. MO agents in Italy developed the Wie Lange Noch? (How Much Longer?) campaign and in June 1944 distributed leaflets, stickers, and even music throughout Italy, southern France, and the Balkans. described as "a resolute skeptic on psychological warfare who gave assignments to psychological people only to keep them out of trouble." One MO agent reported that "the Army . . . dislikes all civilian agencies about equally [and] does not believe that psychological warfare can accomplish anything useful, but suspects that it can be dangerous." MO agents, nonetheless, fully cooperated in the production and dissemination of tactical propaganda during the closing months of the North African campaign. The July 1943 invasion of Sicily provided MO with its first opportunity to demonstrate the capabilities of "black" propaganda, and OSS personnel successfully conducted clandestine radio, leaflet, rumor, poison-pen letter, and blackmail campaigns throughout southern Europe from Sicily and Greece to the Balkans and Czechoslovakia. MO specifically targeted Sicilians, who were thought to be promising targets because of their poverty and alleged clannishness, quick tempers, and lack of sophistication. Italians were similarly targeted and were constantly reminded of their ill treatment by the Germans and Italy's junior status in the Axis alliance. As shortages of war material and food became acute, MO propaganda told Italian troops that the Wehrmacht, and especially the SS, received the best of everything at Italy's expense. To further undermine the morale of Mussolini's armies, thousands of MO leaflets playing on Italian war weariness and resentment of Germany were sent to the Balkans for distribution by Yugoslavian and Albanian partisans. 15 A "comeback" from "comeback from Stars and Stripes" - Italy. Stars and Stripes" - France. A "comeback from The New York Times". This MO poster displays examples of reports of the "League of Lonely Women" that appeared in U.S. newspapers including the Washington Post and New York Times. rapid end to the war; and that individuals MO relied heavily on leaflets in Italy because that nation lacked a substantial radio system. Yet MO leaflets required special care in production and had to be of continental layout, material, and design and distributed in limited numbers to give the impression of a "homegrown" product. General themes for German soldiers included attempts to create suspicions that comrades were shirking duties and looking for surrender opportunities; that Germany's allies were unreliable; MO agents in Italy developed one camthat the nation's future depended on a paign utilizing the theme Wie Lange Noch? (How Much Longer?). This series comprised thirteen different varieties, each identified by a red circle and three extended fingers forming a "W" and was allegedly produced by a German underground group. More than 130,000 leaflets were printed and distributed in June 1944 alone. Broadly disseminated in Italy, southern France, and the Balkans, the leaflets carried slogans claiming that the Nazis were taking the best of food and women; foreign workers were debauching the homeland; secret weapons were a 18 fiction; and Allied bombing was making civilized life in the Reich impossible." Other anti-German leaflets included lists of "bombed streets" in German cities, criticism of Japan's failure to aid the European Axis, and instructions on how soldiers could malinger or desert to Switzerland, with testimonials from soldiers who had done so. One leaflet purported to originate from Axis soldiers who had deserted and joined the French underground after the invasion of southern France in August 1944. It described the excellent treatment they received and how such service could have postwar advantages. 19 While many campaigns were deemed successful by MO evaluators, others were deemed of dubious effectiveness by MO's critics. One example was the 1944 "League of Lonely German Women" campaign. A leaflet instructed enemy soldiers to place a small red heart on their lapel the next time they were on leave. This emblem would identify them to the League of Lonely German Women, who were eager to do their part in boosting morale through sexual promiscuity. The leaflet stated "Don't be shy. Your wife, sister, and sweetheart is one of us. We think of you, but we also think of Germany." These leaflets, delivered by infiltrators, received wide distribution and were actually the subject of stories by the U.S. Army newspaper Stars and Stripes, the Washington Post, and Time magazine. Captured enemy soldiers were found in possession of both the letter and the heart-shaped lapel sticker. 20 Events in Italy prompted an increase in MO Mediterranean efforts during late 1943. Italians were bombarded with leaflets pointing out disparities between Italian and German rations, incidents of German and Italian military clashes, Gestapo operations against Italians, German. stores overflowing with Italian goods, and examples of Germany's defense of the Reich at Italy's expense. Some leaflets intimidated collaborators by using coffinshaped paper containing warnings to "Quislings." Others listed examples of Fascist greed and corruption.21 Most leaflets were either air-dropped behind the lines or delivered by specially designed leaflet artillery shells, but two unique operations were so successful in getting large quantities of propaganda behind the lines that they became routine. Operations SAUERKRAUT and RAVIOLI used German and Italian POWs recruited by the OSS to infiltrate behind the lines to distribute MO propaganda. The OSS began these operations to quickly spread propaganda among Germans about the July 20, 1944, attempt to kill Hitler. The success of the original SAUERKRAUT and RAVIOLI operations prompted the OSS to repeat the technique fifteen times under different code names during the next ten months despite the danger and the questionable legality of using POWs.23 Infiltration teams were again used in France and Germany after August 1944. These units consisted of twenty-one Americans organized in three teams attached to the Twelfth Army Group. They were aided by eighty POWs, foreign workers, and resistance fighters. The teams lived in secluded safe houses near the front and slipped through the lines in small groups to avoid detection. Risks were great, but proper delivery was assured. In ten months the teams conducted sixty infiltration operations distributing leaflets, stickers, stencils, and forged mail. On one mission, eighty agents delivered fifteen thousand pamphlets with the loss of only eight men. 24 The OSS activated an MO office in London in May 1943, but just as in the Mediterranean, the Allied military services attempted to co-opt OSS personnel for "white" tactical propaganda work. Donovan finally managed to have the branch placed under the loose control and oversight of the Psychological Warfare Division of SHAEF (PWD), an organization similar to PWB, which had been created in late 1943 under General McClure. 25 The most sophisticated MO leaflet operations took place in northwest Europe after June 1944. One campaign capitalized on a well-known 1918 incident in which Field Marshal Erich von Ludendorff had fled to Sweden to avoid capture following the Armistice. Reproductions of a letter justifying his actions, written on German High Command stationery addressed to officers, quoted Ludendorff's view "that it is more important to save officers for future wars than to die in a battle already lost. Soldiers are easily found, but officers are a rarer commodity." MO hoped to create friction between enemy officers and enlisted men and to facilitate the creation of revolutionary committees as in 1918. Strafing aircraft and infiltration teams delivered the leaflets in areas where enemy enlisted men were sure to find them.26 A particular MO propaganda triumph was the SKORPION WEST project, named after the German military propaganda service in France. German soldiers had been so indoctrinated with belief in their invincibility prior to D day that the defeats in Normandy severely damaged their morale. SKORPION WEST then began producing morale-boosting leaflets. Like their Allied counterparts, however, the Germans experienced difficulties in gaining a wide distribution and resorted to airdropping leaflets over their own lines. MO immediately obtained copies and produced "black" facsimiles. The first leaflet questioned Nazi resolve and the ability of German troops to hold the front against Allied attacks and encouraged them to scorch the earth before dying in a futile last stand for National Socialism. The second leaflet encouraged enemy soldiers to eliminate defeatist officers who attempted to surrender or retreat. Soldiers were instructed to question all orders and shoot suspects without |